Robert striving to keep Bedford football at the top of D1

[Editor's Note: This story also appears in the 2017 Football Prospectus. Get your copy today by going here.]

Motivation on the football field hasn't every really been a problem for Conor Robert in the past.

When he was a sophomore, Robert spent the entire offseason, almost up until the first game of the year, locked in a heated battle for the starting quarterback job.

And after the Bedford High School football team suffered an excruciating loss in the semifinals to finish that season, Robert had all the inspiration he needed to make sure his junior year had a better ending.

But now that that dream is a reality - the Bulldogs enter the season as the defending Division I champions - what's pushing Robert to take the next step as he gets ready for his senior year?

"I want to win another championship, but personally, I just want to come out and have a great senior year with the kids I've been playing with and have a really fun time," Robert said. "We want to win and that's our main goal, but I want to go out knowing I had a great senior year with my friends."

Even with the pressure to win a starting job or the desire to erase a bad playoff memory, enjoying the journey has always been something that the Bedford senior has tried to keep at the forefront of his football experiences. His understanding of the game has also been a big factor in why he's been able to get where he is.

"He has all the physical tools now, but the quarterback position takes more than the physical stature," Bedford coach Derek Stank said. "It takes a capacity to know the offense and execute it in high-pressure situations. Those are the things he's started to evolve and develop over the years."

When Stank took over as the head coach before the start of the 2015 season, he knew he had a couple of quarterbacks who had played well with the junior varsity and freshmen teams.

But there wasn't anyone going in who stood out.

"We had guys who might have played quarterback before, but they might have been better at defensive back or outside linebacker and we'd prefer for them to stay in that position," Stank said. "We knew (Robert) was a good freshman quarterback. We had a backup in Zach Tucci. It was their job to compete for.

"Let's see what they can do and see if they can earn themselves a starting spot. They battled all through (camp). It wasn't even until the first game that we made the decision to go with Conor."

From there on out, it was Robert's job to lose, and while it wasn't really on his mind, he knew that if he kept playing well, the team would do well, and he'd get to stay on the field.

"I tried to focus on the next game coming up and what I had to do," Robert said. "During the season, at that point, that's when everything kind of just set in, that these were the starters. If something bad started to happen, someone else would step up and take my spot, but I was just trying to go out and play the best I could to show I was worthy to have that spot."

Although the Bulldogs finished off last year with a big comeback win over Merrimack in the semifinals and a 7-0 victory over Exeter in the title game, Bedford has a lot of question marks going into the year. The Bulldogs lost 21 seniors from that championship team, but Robert believes those changes will help keep this year's upperclassmen from losing focus.

"We all know we're on to the next season," he said. "Losing all those seniors, it's helped out a lot. We've realized we're not the same team and we have to fight for what we want."

It's starts with the senior quarterback, according to Stank.

"He's in a position now where, he's been semi in the driver's seat as a quarterback, but now he is a senior captain quarterback," the coach said. "You can't get much bigger than that. He's in a position where he can lead this team, but not just from throwing the ball, but from a mental standpoint. That's the biggest thing he has to develop."

And it's just one more thing to keep Robert motivated.